View full sizeScott Shaw, The Plain Dealer filePeggi Mizen of Lakewood pulls open the drawer of an end table at Fish Furniture in North Olmsted. Despite a national poll that says fewer people are thinking about buying furniture, Fish Furniture and other local retailers say their sales are up compared to this time last year.

NORTH OLMSTED, Ohio -- When homeowners worry about paying their bills and keeping their jobs, the first thing they may cut out of the budget are plans to replace their old couch or sagging mattress

At least, that's what consumer behavior consultant C. Britt Beemer found when he surveyed more than 5,000 consumers about their next major purchases.

After four straight months of telling him they were planning to buy furniture, people started changing their minds, sending his monthly Furniture Buying Index down 4 points to 70, what it was back in February.

"Unless the sofa's poking you in the rear end when you sit down on it, there's no reason to buy another one when you're worried about your job," said Beemer, chairman and chief executive of America's Research Group Ltd. in Summerville, S.C.

However, here in Northeast Ohio, homeowners seem to have more confidence in the recovery and are continuing to buy, according to some local furniture retailers.

"Even though furniture is discretionary, the middle and upper end of the industry tends to do well," said Dan Geller, second-generation owner of Fish Furniture stores.

That may be why he's selling more premium mattresses, which have grown to 20 percent of his sales at his North Olmsted and Mayfield Heights stores.

View full sizeScott Shaw, The Plain Dealer fileLaura Hill, left, browses living room furniture groupings with her mother, Marcy Fabbro, both of Sheffield Village, at Fish Furniture. Fish Furniture owner Dan Geller, who expanded his North Olmsted showroom by 8,000 square feet in anticipation of stronger furniture sales, hasn't seen any signs that consumers are buying fewer sofas, dining room sets or mattresses.

Another big category: Power motion sofas, which let users independently adjust the seatback and footrest, now comprise half his sofa sales. Made by several manufacturers, they cost about $100 more than traditional sofas.

Customers still fret about high gas prices, what's happening in Spain and Greece, and how the stock market is doing, but Fish Furniture's sales are up about 8 percent above this time last year because the first half of the year was so strong.

After his sales started recovering from the 30-percent drop between 2006 and 2009, Geller renovated and expanded his North Olmsted store by another 8,000 square feet, to 40,000 square feet, making it about the size of the Mayfield Heights store.

He cut two jobs during the recession but has hired three more people, for a total workforce of 45 employees.

At Danny Vegh's Home Entertainment stores (formerly Danny Vegh's Billiards and Home), owner and Chief Executive Kathy Vegh said her sales of patio furniture - from fire pits to outdoor dining sets - have more than doubled.

Part of that is because our unusually warm March kicked off patio sales earlier than usual this year, but she has another theory.

"What we attribute our success to is that we offer a lot of American-made options, and I'm seeing a lot of our customers gravitate toward American-made products," she said.

As a company founded nearly 50 years ago by her Hungarian immigrant father Danny Vegh, a former U.S. table tennis champion, Kathy Vegh said she is committed to supporting American manufacturers.

Nearly 80 percent of what she carries is made in America, and she'd like that percentage to be even higher.

Bar stools have been surprisingly popular because so many people are remodeling their kitchens and entertainment areas.

"We have thousands of bar stools, from $49 basic models to custom-made options that run up to $2,000," she said.

Danny Vegh's has five stores in Mayfield Heights, Westlake, Fairlawn/Montrose, Milwaukee and an outlet store on Cleveland's West Side.

John Reed, founder and president of Arhaus Furniture, based in Walton Hills, said he's seeing a 10-percent increase across most of his 43 stores nationwide, including new locations in Philadelphia, Raleigh, Minneapolis and Hackensack, N.J.

He said his Northeast Ohio stores in Canton, Akron, Crocker Park in Westlake and Legacy Village in Lyndhurst - where he still tests ideas he may roll out to other stores - are especially strong.

"January and February were just phenomenal for us," he said.

While furniture retailers may not be uniformly doing well, he pointed out that a lot of furniture stores ended up going out of business during the recession, so there are fewer bricks-and-mortar competitors around now.

"We're focused on really high quality products that are going to last a long time," Reed said.

"Customers are really looking at how they're spending their money, and not buying those things they're going to throw away in a year or two."

Not only are people browsing, they're buying more per transaction.

"If they come in and buy a sofa and chair, they may add lamps to that, or maybe a coffee table," he said. "Or they may add a piece to a bedroom group."

Reed just returned from a buying trip to India, where he bought textiles and leather goods, and was headed next to Northern Italy to look at lamps and dining room tables.

He said customers are raving over soft goods like pillows, the industrial look, and natural materials like solid wood and real stone.

Reed plans to keep taking international buying trips and keep opening stores, saying: "We're excited about the future of home furnishings."

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